1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a pretreatment method for a printing material for performing pretreatment on a fabric, that is, the printing material prior to performing ink jet printing on the printing material so as to inhibit ink from being permeated into the printing material, a pretreatment device, an ink jet textile printing apparatus and an ink jet textile printing method.
2. Related Art
Ink jet textile printing apparatuses have been developed and used which perform printing of a desired image by ejecting respective colors of ink from ink ejection head onto a surface of a fabric such as a T-shirt. JPA-2009-209493 discloses a technique to apply a pretreatment agent having an ink permeation inhibiting property and dry the pretreatment agent prior to performing printing by the ink jet textile printing apparatus as a pretreatment to inhibit ink from being permeated into the fabric, thereby forming an even permeation inhibiting layer on a printing surface of a fabric. This is performed in order to prevent ink from bleeding due to permeation into the fabric or being influenced by a color of the fabric to be printed.
The pretreatment to form a permeation inhibiting layer on the surface of the fabric is required especially in the case where white ink is printed on the surface of colored fabric. If white ink is ejected onto the surface of the fabric that does not have the permeation inhibiting layer formed thereon, the white ink is partially permeated into the fabric and is reduced in layer thickness. This causes the white ink to appear translucent, allowing the colored fabric to be seen therethrough, and not to appear as white.
In the conventional pretreatment method disclosed in JP-A-2009-209493, the pretreatment operation to apply the pretreatment agent on the surface of the fabric and dry the pretreatment agent is carried out on the fabric in its relaxed state with an external tension force not applied. As a result, as shown in FIG. 11A, the amount of a pretreatment agent M applied on concave portions 103 and convex portions 105 of the weaves of the fabric 101 often varies depending on where it is applied. Especially, as shown in FIG. 11B, cracks 111 may be formed at intermediate portions 107 between the concave portions 103 and the convex portions 105 due to the fabric 101 being pulled when set on the set tray 109 of the ink jet textile printing apparatus.
The variation in applied amount of the pretreatment agent M leads to uneven drying of the pretreatment agent M. Such variation causes a problem leading to decreased print quality in the ink jet textile printing apparatus. When the cracks 111 are formed, ink permeates into the fabric 101 through the cracks 111, resulting in problems such as bleeding of ink and influence by a color of the fabric to be printed. Particularly, in the case of white ink, those problems become significant.